ed above a whisper, but emotion clanged in it. 'What
do you know about me? If you had commanded the finest barque that ever
sailed from Portland; if you had been drunk in your berth when she
struck the breakers in Fourteen Island Group, and hadn't had the wit to
stay there and drown, but came on deck, and given drunken orders, and
lost six lives--I could understand your talking then! There,' he said
more quietly, 'that's my yarn, and now you know it. It's a pretty one
for the father of a family. Five men and a woman murdered. Yes, there
was a woman on board, and hadn't no business to be either. Guess I sent
her to Hell, if there is such a place. I never dared go home again; and
the wife and the little ones went to England to her father's place. I
don't know what's come to them,' he added, with a bitter shrug.

'Thank you, captain,' said Herrick. 'I never liked you better.'

They shook hands, short and hard, with eyes averted, tenderness swelling
in their bosoms.

'Now, boys! to work again at lying!' said the captain.

'I'll give my father up,' returned Herrick with a writhen smile. 'I'll
try my sweetheart instead for a change of evils.'

And here is what he wrote:

'Emma, I have scratched out the beginning to my father, for I think I
can write more easily to you. This is my last farewell to all, the last
you will ever hear or see of an unworthy friend and son. I have failed
in life; I am quite broken down and disgraced. I pass under a false
name; you will have to tell my father that with all your kindness. It is
my own fault. I know, had I chosen, that I might have done well; and yet
I swear to you I tried to choose. I could not bear that you should think
I did not try. For I loved you all; you must never doubt me in that,
you least of all. I have always unceasingly loved, but what was my love
worth? and what was I worth? I had not the manhood of a common clerk,
I could not work to earn you; I have lost you now, and for your sake I
could be glad of it. When you first came to my father's house--do you
remember those days? I want you to--you saw the best of me then, all
that was good in me. Do you remember the day I took your hand and would
not let it go--and the day on Battersea Bridge, when we were looking at
a barge, and I began to tell you one of my silly stories, and broke off
to say I loved you? That was the beginning, and now here is the end.
When you have read this letter, you will go round and kiss them all